Day: December 9, 2022

The Genuine Article

Fandango18 Comments

You may remember a few weeks ago when I posted here about taking my iPhone into a cellphone repair shop to have its battery replaced with a new one because my iPhone’s battery was running out of juice by early afternoon. I didn’t want to spend over a grand on a new iPhone, so when I found out that I could purchase a new battery and have a technician install it for under $100, it was a no brainer.

Unfortunately, the battery the tech put in my iPhone was not an OEM (original equipment manufacturer) battery. In other words, it was an off-brand battery. And Apple doesn’t like to have non-genuine Apple parts used in Apple products.

The off-brand battery worked okay, but I kept getting an annoying pop up on my iPhone reminding me that the battery in my iPhone was not a genuine Apple battery. And by installing a non-Apple battery on my iPhone, I was a very naughty boy.

I called the tech at the shop that installed the battery and he admitted that he did not use an OEM battery. He said he did so because I sounded “very eager” on the phone to have the battery replacement done ASAP. He explained that, “due to supply chain issues,” it would take him a week to ten days to get a genuine Apple battery, so he chose to install a non-Apple battery because of my desire to have it done quickly. Without telling me first.

He also said that the only way to get rid of that annoying pop-up about a non-genuine Apple battery in my iPhone would be to open up the device, remove the battery he just installed, and install a genuine Apple battery. But it could take up to ten days for him to get one in.

Fast forward ten days. The tech called me yesterday and told me the OEM battery had arrived and I could stop by and he’d install it at no charge.

So now, with the genuine Apple battery installed in my iPhone, I’m a happy camper once again. Well, sort of, it’s 4 pm and my genuine Apple battery, which was at 100% charge when I first woke up at 7 am, is already down to 42%.

Did they install a used genuine Apple battery in my iPhone, I wonder.

WDP — Big Events

Fandango14 Comments

What big events have taken place in your life over the past year?

Overall, as a retire who, ever since March of 2020, when COVID came close to shutting down the world, has been somewhat of a shut-in, “big events” don’t often happen to us (me and my wife). That said, there have been a few things of note:

  • December 2021 — My wife and I sold our traditional bicycles and got e-bikes.
  • January — We had to put our ailing, 16-year-old cat down.
  • March — We adopted a one year old Labrador retriever mix from a local animal shelter.
  • April — We found out, after a doggie DNA test, that our Labrador retriever puppy mix is mostly pit bull.
  • April — I got fitted for hearing aids, significantly improving my ability to hear, but making me feel as old as Methuselah.
  • May — Our grandson’s second birthday.
  • June — My wife’s 70th birthday.
  • July — We were in our backyard playing with our dog, when she got a case of the zoomies and ended up colliding with my wife, knocking her off her feet. My wife ended up with a broken foot.
  • August — Late in the month we had a ten day, 100+°F heat wave that resulted in rolling power outages and our two year old whole house generator that we purchased specifically for situations like this failed.
  • September — My wife and I took our first vacation away from home since 2018.
  • October — Our granddaughter’s first birthday.
  • November — Our daughter and her long-time boyfriend got married.
  • December — It’s only the 9th. Maybe there will be a big event yet to come this month.

Written for today’s WordPress Daily Prompt.

Blogger, Spammer, Bot, or Troll?

Fandango24 Comments

I woke up this morning to find a boatload of comments from “gregshe11.” He commented on a lot of comments from some of you who commented on my Wild Animals post from yesterday.

I am not sure if he’s real, a spammer, a troll, or a bot. His comments seem to be triggered off of key words in the comment upon which he’s commenting. So I think he’s not legit and I encourage you to ignore or delete his comments.

I moved all of his comments into my pending folder and sent him this message:

I’m not expecting to hear back from “Greg.”

Fandango’s Flashback Friday — December 9th

Fandango17 Comments

Wouldn’t you like to expose your newer readers to some of your earlier posts that they might never have seen? Or remind your long term followers of posts that they might not remember? Each Friday I will publish a post I wrote on this exact date in a previous year.

How about you? Why don’t you reach back into your own archives and highlight a post that you wrote on this very date in a previous year? You can repost your Friday Flashback post on your blog and pingback to this post. Or you can just write a comment below with a link to the post you selected.

If you’ve been blogging for less than a year, go ahead and choose a post that you previously published on this day (the 9th) of any month within the past year and link to that post in a comment.

This was originally posted on December 9, 2018.

Oh My

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“Pretty soon I’ll be free of this crap,” Edward said to the guy standing in line next to him.

“Oh yeah,” the guy said. “How so?”

“I’m retiring soon,” Edward said, “and then this rat race will be over and I won’t be rushing to the airport and standing in long check-in lines and having to deal with this bullshit anymore.”

“Lucky you,” the guy said. “I can only dream about being able to ditch this hassle. So where are you headed?

“I’m on my way to Los Angeles,” Edward said.

“No kidding?” the guy said. “Me too.”

“Really? What’s taking you there?” Edward asked.

“Well,” the guy said, “I run a company that puts on beauty contests around the country and I have to screen a bunch of prospective contestants before Saturday’s pageant.”

“You mean like the Miss America pageant?”

“Kind of,” the guy said with a smile on his face. “It’s the Miss Porn America pageant. It’s little more kinky than Miss America. And why are you going there?”

“I’m surprising my granddaughter,” Edward said. “She’s a budding actress and is auditioning for some show there.”

Edward thought for a second. “Oh my,” he said.

(200 words)

I spent much of today with family and friends, but I wanted to get my Sunday Photo Fiction post in before I called it a day. I also squeezed in these one-word prompts: Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (free), Ragtag Daily Prompt (dream), Scotts Daily Prompt (screen), Your Daily Word Prompt (pageant).

FOWC with Fandango — Spellbound

Fandango20 Comments
FOWC

It’s December 9, 2022. Welcome to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (U.S.).

Today’s word is “spellbound.”

Write a post using that word. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. It can be any length. It can be just a picture or a drawing if you want. No holds barred, so to speak.

Once you are done, tag your post with #FOWC and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Please check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, please manually add your link in the comments.

And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. Show them some love.